cheers from the islands

17 November 2012

have you any plans for this weekend? i’m going to the ladies hat luncheon at the regent palms, a fund raiser to help the holy family academy mission school in provo. i can’t wait to see all the ladies in super hats!!

also, on island –

on sunday the 6th annual windvibes kiteboarding tournament and beach party on long bay beach

and a delicious thanksgiving menus suggestion if you don’t have any plans yet – i can’t believe thanksgiving is just around the corner

next week, the 9th annual turks and caicos conch festival by blue hills – remember last year?

happy weekend from turks and caicos!

dolphins in turks and caicos

16 November 2012

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i’m all about keeping this blog on the positive side, and try to show all the amazing and beautiful things that the turks and caicos islands have to offer, wether you live here or come to visit. but today i would like to share something that i am not so proud of.

recently our governor has approved for a turks and caicos dolphin cove to open in 2013, keeping them in captivity as a tourist attraction. this goes all against what turks and caicos represents, beautiful by nature.

if you have visited turks and caicos for the last 25 years, you have definitely heard of jo jo (he has his own facebook page!), a friendly bottlenose dolphin who loves to swim with tourists and residents near the beaches in provo. i truly believe in the island’s natural beauty represented by jo jo, and that dolphins should be kept in the wild.

if you would like to help and sign the petition to stop the development of dolphin attraction in turks and caicos – click here

for more information on this visit no 2 caged dolphins in turks and caicos on facebook and read the open letter to governor ric todd from turks and caicos goodwill ambassador tanya streeter on the turks and caicos sun newspaper.

thanks catherine for the gorgeous picture of jo jo and friends!

his dive story / 37

22 August 2012

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Finally, the wreck on provo that I have been dying to dive since I moved here. Wreck diving is normally not on the tourist menu here in paradise as most tourists are happy enough doing 20m on the reef walls and seeing reef sharks…

The W.E. wreck is not your everyday type of dive due to its location (there is no mooring) and strong currents. I happened to take last friday morning off and decided to go diving. The boat had 3 other experienced divers that morning and the sea was flat… Let’s do the wreck offered “Captain” Dave (owner of provo turtle divers) and the boat captain for that day was Art (original owner of the dive shop) took us there. I had such a rush to finally do a wreck dive! I had come from both Portugal and Malta where almost every other dive I did was a wreck dive…

The bow is around 30m and the stern 55m, I know, as I did the obligatory swim thru passed into the propeller. Woweee!! Had instant deco on my vr3.

It was a peacful dive, one I would love to spend more time next time. Prepare for a free ascent or bring your smb… Will bring my FAMI torch and penetrate! Enjoy!

See my previous DIVE STORY posts! – James

turks and caicos beaches // long bay

21 August 2012

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every time i leave provo, i feel somewhat nostalgic… and on the day i leave i always go for a quick visit to the beach near home. but this time, for a change, i went to long bay beach.

we don’t usually go to long bay, we seem to forget it when deciding what beach to go to.

but when we have guests coming to visit i always take them there and they love it. the beach is gorgeous, it is almost always deserted and so easy to fall in love with.

here, the water is very shallow, it is sometimes windy, and perfect for kite surfers.

i love these palm trees on the beach too, don’t you? it makes it look so dreamy!

his dive story / 36

13 August 2012

2 Comments

This past Sunday’s dive was by far one of the better dives I’ve had so far. I can finally check off my list the hammerhead. It was at Northwest Point and I was coming up from 42m to the reef wall at 30m when from a distance, I saw a shape of a shark that I figured was just another reef shark so I was preparing to ignore it… :) then I noticed that it had a strange head, that of a hammerhead!! Quick, my mind was flashing..take a pic or video it…at the very last second, I decided to video it and it was a good thing as the typically skittish hammerhead swam by really fast and I caught it!!! Yeahhhh man! Finally!

The other shark I saw was a nurse at a dive site called Two Steps. I had seen this one before at the same location but this time, it had sadly a fishing hook line and weight on its mouth… it was dangling it around and making clanking noises when it brushed against hard corals…I hope the hook falls off soon. When I first saw it, it was next to a huge lobster that appeared to be guarding it! How funny… Enjoy – James